System in Field Records 



BY EUGENE MURRAY-AARON 



THE plea for the ever-ready note-book and praise of the diary-keeper, 

 so excellently set forth by Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton in BiRD- 

 LoRE for December, 1902, deserves careful reading and more — fol- 

 lowing the advice — on the part of many who to-day are letting the hints 

 and whispers of Dame Nature pass by unnoted and, in many cases, not to 

 be repeated. 



But, few of us are so endowed that we can make the immediate and 

 charming use of such notes as can Thompson Seton. Or, being entomolo- 

 gists or botanists, we may yet observe many a fact worthy of recording out- 

 side our fields, among the mammals, birds, or reptiles. It is the recording 

 and keeping of such notes as these that is most likely to be overlooked by 

 the field student; for he does not feel competent to weigh and use them 

 himself, nor does he think it at all likely that they will be dug out of his 

 journals by students in other branches. Therefore, he early forms the 

 habit of forgetting those observations not of special bearing on his own 

 chosen department. It must be that in this way many unique happenings 

 are lost to science; or, at least, their recording is postponed to the time of 

 some later observer. 



The solution of this problem of the permanency and useability of such 

 records is a most obvious one; yet, I find few who seem to have arrived at 

 it. It is to be found in that greatest literary invention of the last century — 

 the card catalogue. 



Let the field worker see to it that he never goes afield without an am- 

 ple supply of cards. Let these be the standard (3x5 inch) size, so that 

 they will fit into any public or private card catalogue; for, if they are 

 smaller than the cards with which they are to be incorporated they can be 

 pasted on the larger cards, while, if larger and filled with notes to their mar- 

 gins their incorporation is impossible. The writer finds it convenient to 

 have these cards mounted in tablets of 100 each, gummed at the lower 

 edges so that the particles of adherent gum on a removed card will not be 

 on the top or sides to interfere with the ease of handling them in the 

 catalogue drawer. 



Two dissimilar or unrelated observations should never be put on one 

 card. Let each card be the bearer of its own story and no more; the wis- 

 dom thereof will be amply apparent to the student when their classification 

 and filing time arrives. 



All cards should be dated; the ordinary rotary rubber-dating stamp is 



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